Easy Kill by Lin Anderson

surreptitious look. Sometimes she thought David suffered more than she did. His silence was the silence of the walking dead. He went through the motions of being alive, but in reality he had died when Terri walked out the door, after their last of many attempts to help her get off drugs. Nora, on the other hand, still clung to hope like a life raft; a phone call once a month, if she was lucky, her daughter’s voice a moment’s oasis in the desert that had become Nora’s life.
    Nora waited until David left for his job at the Marina, then called Terri’s number again. When the result was the same as before, she phoned the provider’s helpline. Despite the man’s professional tone,Nora got the impression he wasn’t interested in teenage daughters who didn’t call home.
    ‘But it was her number. There was a strange background sound, then it went dead,’ Nora explained.
    ‘That can happen if the call button is pressed by accident. The caller doesn’t realise the call is being made.’
    His explanation didn’t satisfy Nora. Her state of high alert stayed with her all morning. She went through the chores like a zombie, her mind churning. In their last conversation, Terri had told Nora she was coming off heroin, this time for good. Nora had heard it all before, but there was something in Terri’s voice that had fed her hope. She’d never told David about that conversation. She hadn’t wanted to see the despair and anger in his eyes, so she’d kept the words to herself, playing them over and over in her head, like a mantra.
    At ten o’clock Nora turned on the radio and listened to the Scottish news. The headline about the body of a young woman found dead in a Glasgow graveyard sent her running to the phone. The hotline number given for the public response was busy and Nora was put on hold for five minutes. By the time someone answered, Nora was so frightened she could hardly speak.
    ‘My daughter’s missing. She was supposed to call last night.’
    A voice asked for her daughter’s name and address.
    ‘Terri Docherty.’ Nora’s face flushed with shame. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know her current address.’
    ‘Terri Docherty?’ the voice repeated.
    ‘Yes.’
    There was a moment’s silence, then the voice said, ‘Mrs Docherty, I’m going to transfer you to someone who will take details.’
    Nora went cold. ‘Please God no,’ she whispered to herself.
    ‘I’m passing you over to a police officer now.’
    Nora sank to her knees, still grasping the phone. A man’s voice came on the line.
    ‘Mrs Docherty, this is DS McNab. Tell me about your daughter.’
    Two uniformed officers arrived at midday. Nora was in the garden, staring up at the tree house. Terri had spent all her time up there, after her brother died. Separated by only ten months, Philip and Terri had been like twins, although Philip had always led and Terri had followed. Philip’s death aged sixteen, from a brain haemorrhage had been like an explosion at the heart of their family, its shock waves weakening the foundations that held them together. The doctor had told them to let their daughter deal with her grief in her own way. Terri’s way had been to shut out both her parents, as though the anguish were all her own.
    The two officers accepted Nora’s offer of tea, and she went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. She wondered how many teas or coffees they were subjected to in any given day and if they merely drank them out of kindness. Nora’s hand trembled as she poured boiling water into the teapot and set mugs, milk and sugar on a tray. Through the open door tothe sitting room, her visitors sat awkwardly at either end of the sofa, like a couple who weren’t on speaking terms.
    They waited in silence while Nora went through the ritual of dispensing the tea. The man, who introduced himself as PC Connachie, accepted her offer of a chocolate biscuit. It was the woman, PC Ferguson, who spoke first.
    ‘DS McNab explained that the body